5.  The applicants were born in 1953 and 1975 respectively and live in Mykolayiv.
6.  The applicants are respectively mother and sister of Mr K. who had been working at a mill operated by company O.
7.  On 4 March 2006, as K. was cleaning an extruder machine at the mill, someone switched on the electricity, which set the machine in motion seriously injuring K.
8.  On 9 March 2006 K. died in hospital of his injuries.
9.  On 10 March 2006 the Mykolayiv Regional Department of State Authority for Workplace Safety and Mining Supervision (“the Regional Workplace Safety Department”) appointed a committee (“the first committee”) to conduct a special inquiry into the circumstances of the fatal accident with K.
10.  On 30 March 2006 the Mykolayiv Regional Labour Inspectorate (“the Labour Inspectorate”), in response to a request from the first committee, stated that K. had worked at the mill under a services contract concluded between him and company O. under which he had, as a matter of form, the status of an independent contractor. The Labour Inspectorate took the view that this contract arrangement operated to conceal employment relations which in fact existed between K. and the company.
11.  On 7 April 2006 the first committee found that K. had been registered as unemployed and was referred to company O. as a trainee by the unemployment office. He was not an employee and it had been planned that he would start as an employee of company O. only in April 2006. At the time of the accident he merely had a contract to provide services to the company. He did not contribute to the workplace accident insurance scheme. The committee concluded that the fact that an employment relationship existed between K. and the company had to be established in a court given that the nature of the contract between the parties was unclear. In view of these findings, the committee decided that the special inquiry procedure did not apply to K. since he had neither been an employee nor did he contribute to the workplace accident insurance scheme as a self-employed person. It accordingly decided not to conduct an investigation and to refer the materials to the local administration and local prosecutor’s office.
12.  On 20 November 2006 the Zavodsky District Court of Mykolayiv, upon the applicants’ claim, established that the contract between K. and company O. had been an employment contract.
13.  On 22 March 2007 the Mykolayiv Regional Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of 20 November 2006.
14.  On 24 March 2008 the State Bailiffs ordered the Regional Workplace Safety Department to give effect to the judgment.
15.  Complying with the order, in May 2008 the Regional Workplace Safety Department appointed three public officials, Mr L., Mrs L., and Mrs B., as well as Mrs Z., managing director of company O., and Mr Ku., a representative of company O.’s employees, as members of the second committee to investigate the circumstances of the accident (“the second committee”).
16.  On 12 June 2008 the second committee issued its report regarding the circumstances of the accident and K.’s death. It considered that the accident was not work-related. K. was not asked to repair the extruder and was even prohibited by the management from doing so. According to the conclusions, K., being drunk, himself switched on the extruder and started cleaning it with a vacuum cleaner. The extruder sucked in a loose end of K.’s clothing tearing off his arms and inflicting other injuries, which proved lethal. B. added a separate opinion stating that the committee’s report failed to identify organisational reasons for the accident, namely the absence of workplace safety management system at the mill, failure to train K. in safety rules, and failure to follow technical regulations.
17.  On 26 November 2012 the Zavodsky District Court of Mykolayiv rejected the first applicant’s civil claim in which she, contesting the factual findings of the second committee, sought to invalidate the second committee’s report of 12 June 2008.
18.  On 6 December 2012 this judgment became final.
19.  On 4 March 2006 the Mykolayiv Tsentralny District Prosecutor examined the scene of the incident at the mill and drew up a report.
20.  On 4 and 6 March 2006 a number of employees of the mill and other witnesses were interviewed as part of pre-investigative inquiries.
21.  On 14 March 2006 the District Prosecutor’s Office refused to institute criminal proceedings against company O.’s managers for a breach of workplace safety rules for lack of corpus delicti. Among the reasons for this decision it noted, in particular, that the special inquiry into the accident had not been completed.
22.  On 24 December 2009 the Mykolayiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office (“the Regional Prosecutor’s Office”) quashed the decision of 14 March 2006 on the ground that the investigation had not been sufficiently thorough.
23.  On 11 January 2010 the District Prosecutor’s Office refused to institute criminal proceedings against company O.’s managers for breach of safety rules. It relied on the report of the second committee as one of the reasons for the decision and stated that it was not possible to verify the conclusions of the committee because too much time had elapsed since the accident.
24.  On 22 January 2010 the Regional Prosecutor’s Office quashed the decision of 11 January 2010 on the ground that the District Prosecutor’s Office had failed to establish whether K. could physically switch on the extruder while simultaneously cleaning it.
25.  On 6 February 2010 the District Prosecutor’s Office again refused to institute criminal proceedings into K.’s death. It relied, in part, on the report of the second committee. It stated that it was not possible to locate two of the witnesses to interview them.
26.  On 17 September 2010 the Regional Prosecutor’s Office quashed the decision of 6 February 2010 reaffirming the instruction to verify whether K. could possibly switch on the extruder himself and pointing out that it had not been shown that any steps had been taken to locate the two witnesses.
27.  On 16 February 2011 the District Prosecutor’s Office refused to institute criminal proceedings once again. It relied, in part, on the report of the second committee.
28.  On 1 March 2011 the Regional Prosecutor’s Office quashed the decision of 16 February 2011 and instituted criminal proceedings against the managers of company O. on suspicion of breach of labour regulations with fatal consequences. It noted in particular that the previous enquiries had been superficial. It also noted that the subordinate prosecutors had failed to take into account B.’s separate opinion to the second committee’s report and failed to interview her. In addition, it noted that the case raised a number of questions, including those identified by B., which needed to be examined by an expert, in particular the question of who had been responsible for ensuring safe working conditions at the mill.
29.  On 16 March 2011 the investigator recognised the first applicant as an aggrieved party and a party with a civil claim in the criminal proceedings.
30.  On 1 June 2011 the investigator appointed a workplace safety expert to examine a number of questions related to the causes of the accident with K. and compliance with safety regulations at the mill at the relevant time.
31.  On 9 September 2011 the investigator interviewed Ku. He stated, in particular, that he had been employed as Z.’s driver since 1998, had no training or experience related to the mill’s equipment, and that he had represented the employees on the second committee.
32.  On 27 December 2011 the workplace safety expert appointed by the investigator issued his report on the causes of the accident. The expert concluded that K. had switched on the extruder in order to be able clean it faster and was fatally injured as a result. The expert also concluded that the company’s management had breached a number of workplace safety regulations, in that K. was allowed to work on an extruder without sufficient workplace safety training, was improperly allowed access to the machine’s switch and was allowed to work on it while it was out of order and partially dismantled.
33.  On 30 March 2012 Z. was indicted for breach of safety regulations applicable in the course of dangerous operations which caused a death.
34.  On 4 May 2012 the Tsentralny District Court of Mykolayiv (“the trial court”) committed Z. for trial.
35.  On 1 July 2013 the trial court ordered an expert opinion on a number of questions concerning the case, including the question of whether K. had been fatally wounded in the course of a dangerous activity.
36.  As of 8 April 2014 the proceedings were pending.